Today I would like to inform the House about the publication of the neighbourhood health framework, which outlines the next steps that we are asking the NHS and local government to take—working with civil society—to deliver neighbourhood health.
Neighbourhood health is at the heart of the 10-year health plan and our mission to build an NHS fit for the future. It is underpinned by three shifts—hospital to community; treatment to prevention; analogue to digital—and neighbourhood health is pivotal to all three.
The shift to a neighbourhood health service will ensure that services are easier for people to access and professionals to deliver, with multidisciplinary teams that work together to reach people earlier, to support them to stay well and live independently, and to prevent needs escalating. This joined-up approach will deliver more preventive, personalised and digitally enabled care.
The framework builds on our previous publications, such as the NHS medium-term planning framework for 2026-27 to 2028-29, the strategic commissioning framework for integrated care boards, and the better care fund framework for 2026-27. We know that there are already strong examples of neighbourhood working across the country. The neighbourhood health framework aims to provide clarity and consistency for local leaders to develop and scale their neighbourhood health services and plans.
The neighbourhood health framework outlines a minimum set of interventions that all ICBs should deliver over the next three years. While reforms will be led locally, we have heard from systems that there are many common-sense actions that work well everywhere—these actions are the building blocks of successful, joined-up neighbourhood health services. Importantly, this set of interventions is not the ceiling of neighbourhood health, but the foundation on which local priorities will be built. The framework is designed to create the conditions for local leaders to succeed, giving them the flexibility to design services that best meet the needs of their local communities.
The framework outlines 10 core steps that we are asking local government and ICBs to take in 2026-27, including agreeing neighbourhood footprints and confirming intentions to use pooled funding under the better care fund. Progress made in 2026-27 will form the basis for action in 2027-28, when, working through health and wellbeing boards, ICBs and local government are expected to develop local neighbourhood health plans.
Central to our plans are neighbourhood health centres, which will bring care closer to where people live. Our ambition is for there to be a neighbourhood health centre in every community. To kickstart delivery, in the 2025 autumn Budget we announced our commitment to deliver 120 neighbourhood health centres by 2030, and 250 by 2035, funded through a mix of public-private partnership and public capital, and starting in the areas of greatest need.
At the heart of our work to deliver neighbourhood health are people, particularly those working hard across health and care, wider local government, and with our civil society partners. Through their efforts, we will see increased and improved join-up between public services, as multidisciplinary, cross-sector teams work in a system that focuses on keeping people well, using the workforce, funding and local assets to their best effect. We recognise that the current system is too siloed, and we are committed to supporting the culture change that is a prerequisite for building the seamless, integrated, person-centred care that patients and the workforce are crying out for.
The 10-year workforce plan will set out aggregate assumptions and scenarios to inform local NHS workforce plans when published later this year.
We will support local systems to deliver through the national neighbourhood health implementation programme, which will build capability and identify success criteria for the scaling of new neighbourhood health models. So far we have launched the national neighbourhood health implementation programme across 43 places in England.
We will also support ICBs to commission new outcomes-based neighbourhood health services through the development of contractual levers, including single neighbourhood provider and multi-neighbourhood provider contracts. We will also support the goals of neighbourhood health in national reform agendas, such as Best Start family hubs, Pride in Place initiatives, local Get Britain Working plans, and workwell.
I am proud to be the Minister driving neighbourhood health. I have seen that every day across health, care and wider local government, people work tirelessly to improve our services and make them better for communities. Neighbourhood health is the beginning of an exciting new chapter in how we build an NHS, and wider health and care system, fit for the future.
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